House Republicans summon ActBlue attorney Ronald Machen for a closed-door interview, citing contradictions in his prior statements on donor verification.
Page A2From§Eachthe matinee edition — 28 September 2026
House Republicans summon ActBlue's lawyer to explain memos that already contradict him, a third time this month.
As it ran on the front
Monday's letter runs three signatures deep — Chairmen Steil, Jordan, Comer — and one addressee: Ronald Machen, WilmerHale partner, attorney of record for ActBlue. The ask is simple. Transcribed interview. No public hearing room, no cameras.
All together now — that's the part worth sitting with. The letter doesn't ask Machen to produce the contradiction. It says the committee has it. Chairmen Steil, Jordan and Comer aren't summoning a witness to find out what happened; they're summoning him to watch them read it back to him. That's not investigation, strictly speaking. That's a table read.…
…(cont) The paper trail behind Monday's letter runs a full week. On September 21st, House GOP investigators told reporters their ActBlue inquiry was "far from over," pointing to what they called bombshell internal memos showing the platform green-lit donations despite flagged foreign red flags. Nobody released the memos. The public got the adjective — bombshell — and not the document.
Four days later, on September 25th, Missouri's attorney general, Catherine Hanaway, opened her own investigation, a state track running parallel to the federal one, and sent ActBlue civil investigative demands for its donor-processing and fraud-prevention files. Same platform, same month, a second office asking for the same category of paper the first office already claims to be holding.
Which brings the ball back around to Monday. The 21st announced the memos exist. The 25th announced a second office wants copies.
A transcribed interview is a fine instrument. It is not, historically, a way of releasing evidence to the people who are paying for the investigation. Chairmen Steil, Jordan and Comer are welcome to schedule it whenever the stenographer is free. In the meantime, the memos stay exactly where bombshells tend to stay after the initial reporting — described, cited, and unread.
“They keep telling you they've got the memo, the bombshell, the smoking gun — they just never hand it over, they summon a guy to a closed room and read it to him instead. That's not oversight, that's a script table read with subpoena power. Three probes into one platform in one month and the only document the public's actually seen is a letter.”
“Look, a transcribed interview is standard committee practice, this isn't some — okay it is a little unusual to summon a guy to explain memos you're not releasing, but that's — due process, for the committee. We're not hiding anything, we're just not showing anything. There's a difference. I think. Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me.”
The receipts
House Republicans are demanding testimony from an attorney for ActBlue, accusing him of defending the Democratic fundraising platform’s foreign donor screening practices with findings that conflict with internal documents. In a letter on Monday to WilmerHale partner Ronald Machen, Chairmen Bryan Steil (R-WI), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and James…
· House GOP not done with ActBlue after bombshell internal memos raise foreign cash questions from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
· Missouri attorney general investigates ActBlue over campaign fundraising fraud from the morgue, 25 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.